Last night, I felt like having a warm, comforting meal. It was dreary; it was gray. And so, soup it was. I can churn out a delicious soup any day. But this time, I wanted to amp it up a bit. I wanted a challenge. So homemade cheez-it crackers it was.

They were really amazing. Amazing, amazing. Like never buy them again and just make them amazing. And turns out, it was no challenge at all. These are really simple to make. For a first go around, my crackers weren’t so even, and since last night, I’ve purchased a little mini goldfish cookie cutter for future crackering.

Oh, and these happened to go gloriously with a tomato-white bean-pasta soup with spinach instead of kale (my store didn’t have any kale…are you kidding me?).

I’ve pretty much done what I’ve been saying I would do for years: get all my Christmas knitting done way ahead of time. For the first time, ever, I am doing and have done just that. It’s remarkable, really, since it’s impossible for me to set rules for myself and abide by them.

But here we are, in October, and I’ve got a majority of my things completed, my knits blocked and put in paper awaiting new owners, and even purchasing the small other things I give. It’s a modern day miracle.

I absolutely love color work. Its challenging but so rewarding and takes to crazy color combinations really well. This is the Moody House hat, in progress. Top down, I decided to use little bundles of leftover yarn I had, so this hat is a stash buster, besides being gorgeous and so fun to work up.

A co-worker and friend just informed me he will be the proud papa of a baby girl this December. The obvious first choice was to begin with Purl Bee’s Fair Isle baby hat, which I’ve been dying to make for some time.

This was a quick 2 hour knit. I used Knit Picks Palette, since I have 100 skeins of it in every imaginable colorway, and wanted to reflect the original pattern’s motif. The main color way is white, and the motif (from bottom on up) are as follows: asphalt heather, briar heather, camel heather, almond, and oyster heather.